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"Infringed" Versus "Infringing": Different Interpretations Of The Word "Work" And The Effect On The Deterrence Goal Of Copyright Law, Sarah A. Zawada

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

One of the key elements that courts use to determine an appropriate statutory damage award in a copyright infringement case is the number of infringements of a copyright. How does a court determine the number of infringements when one infringing article has been printed six times in over one hundred copies of a magazine? Before the Copyright Act of 1976 went into effect, many courts adhered to the "multiplicity doctrine" and would have awarded statutory damages in the above scenarios for each of the six times that the infringing article was printed or the infringing song was played. Post-1976, however, …